Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser, says Israel has to fundamentally change the situation regarding Hezbollah and that in doing so it may find itself in an all-out war. This could happen, he says, even though, “for all sorts of reasons, we don’t want to get to that big war in which Tel Aviv and Dahiyeh [Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut] play a role — symbolically and practically.”
In its battle against Hezbollah, Amidror tells Channel 12 news, Israel “has to reach a situation where Hezbollah is not near the border and cannot even think about the possibility of doing its own version of October 7.”
To achieve this, he says, “It could be that we will have to go into southern Lebanon with ground forces, to ensure that south Lebanon has no Hezbollah infrastructure, no Hezbollah fighters.”
It could also be, he adds, that “at some stage, we’ll pass a point… that will bring us to that all-out war.”
Amidror notes that Israel will also have to ensure that Hezbollah does not return to the south of Lebanon — because UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war, “didn’t hold for even three minutes. We can’t rely on anybody else to do the work. UNIFIL [the UN peacekeeping force] is a bad joke.”
Furthermore, says Amidror, “We also can’t allow a situation whereby the war ends and Hezbollah then spends three years rebuilding itself.”
Rather, he says, Israel needs to “hit every Hezbollah military asset that it identifies.”
The threat posed by Hezbollah, he elaborates, “has to be reduced to the point where the decisionmakers in Israel won’t say, ‘We can’t do this, because Hezbollah will attack us.’ No. [The situation has to be that] Hezbollah has far fewer capabilities and we’re not afraid of what might happen [when the IDF needs to target its assets].”
Israel, he says, must not repeat the mistake of the past 20 years, where “we let it build up its power to the maximum, and did nothing to stop that.”
Asked whether Iran will stand by and let all this happen, he notes that Iran could choose to fire at Israel from its own territory. But if Tehran wants to rearm Hezbollah, it would need to convey that weaponry 1,500 kilometers, and Israel has capabilities to prevent this.
Israel let Hezbollah become a monster, and then was shocked by what it had allowed to happen, he says. Israel can’t let Hezbollah grow to monstrous proportions again, he stresses.
Amidror, in the interview, also describes as “overly optimistic” a reported estimate by an Israeli official that 50% of Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles have been destroyed and notes that, even if it were true, that would still leave Hezbollah with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. “We need to take account not only of what’s been destroyed, but also of what remains,” he says.
Finally, he says there is no reason to believe that pressure on Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will help enable a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday. “I don’t understand how people connect this. Hamas makes the decisions on the hostages, and Hezbollah has no influence on that, in my opinion,” says Amidror, who served as Netanyahu’s national security adviser in 2011-13.
Israel has to “keep hitting Hezbollah and prevent it from rebuilding, and continue to target Hamas,” including its fighters and its tunnels, he says. “And most important, there are hostages to free [in Gaza]. We have to do all that with no connection to what we are doing in Lebanon.”
An Israeli anti missile system intercepts missiles fired from Lebanon as seen from the northern Israeli city of Katzrin, on September 24, 2024. (Michael Giladi/Flash90)
US President Joe Biden speaks during the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on September 24, 2024. (ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
A residential building whose top two floors were hit by an Israeli strike in the Ghobeiri area of Beirut's southern suburbs on September 24, 2024. (Anwar AMRO / AFP)
Smoke rises after a 'targeted' IDF strike on a Hezbollah target in Beirut, September 24, 2024. (Screenshot via social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Firefighters battle a blaze sparked by a rocket fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah, Kiryat Shmona, September 24, 2024 (Fire and Rescue Service)
Smoke billows after an Israeli strike on the area of el-Hosh near port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon on September 24, 2024. Israel says it is hitting Hezbollah targets (HASSAN FNEICH / AFP)
Lebanese citizens fleeing southern villages amid Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah sit in their cars on a highway that links to Beirut, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A rescuer inspects the debris at the site of an overnight Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese village of Akbiyeh on September 24, 2024 (Mahmoud ZAYYAT / AFP)
